The Top Five Most Amazing Herbs For Healing Wounds!

5 amazing herbs for wound healing

One of the unique things about my herbal practice over the years has been that lots of my patients are pretty dumb. Seriously, you wouldn’t believe some of the dumb things they do! They cross the street without looking both ways, chew through electrical cords, and get bitten by cats, chase cows and get shot. Some of them even drink out of the toilet!

Yes. I’m talking about dogs. Did I mention that dogs are pretty dumb?

As a veterinarian for 30 years, I was involved with a wound case almost every day. And, wow! Some of them were horrific.

A Romp In The Park

As an example, I remember a little Pomeranian that came to see me once. He’d been on a walk with his master when he saw a bull elk about 50 yards away. The elk was in a pretty bad mood. It was “the rut“; that time of year when bull elk are looking for love and fighting with all the other bulls trying to impress the ladies. It’s also the time when the felt is coming off of the antlers which isn’t too comfy.

This young bull was in a really bad mood. His antlers hurt, all the other bulls were winning the squabbles and he wasn’t being taken seriously by any of the cows. He was, basically, about a thousand pounds of testosterone-driven irritability. All in all, it was a pretty bad day for a 10-pound Pomeranian to start barking at him and telling him that if he weren’t tied to his master by this leash, he’d come over there and teach him a thing or two. That was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. Well….except the elk wasn’t a camel and it wasn’t HIS back that was going to get broken!

The mighty beast lowered his head and charged the 50 yards at full speed plowing the Pomeranian into the turf and bellowing Elkish insults at the poor little guy. The owner of the dog who was on the other end of the leash somehow escaped unharmed.

When they brought the dog to me he had multiple fractures, terrible skin and muscle tears and a lot of pain. And, believe it or not, that’s not the worst wound case I’ve managed over the years. Heck, I’m not sure the little guy even makes it into the top ten!

My First Grab For Wound Cases

So, yeah, I have had my share of wound cases.

And what do I grab to manage those cases? More often than not, I reach for the herbs.

Why? Because medicinal plants have remarkable powers that can be employed to good advantage in wound cases. With pharmaceuticals I can basically do two things for a wound case; give antibiotics for the infection and pain meds for the pain. That’s about it.

Herbs are a different story. Not only can I use herbal antibiotics for infection and herbal anti-inflammatories and nervines for pain, but I can also stop bleeding, reverse shock, improve circulation, talk compromised tissue out of dying, eliminate toxins and accelerate healing. For wound care, in my experience, pharmaceuticals really can’t hold a candle to herbs. And, it isn’t just in dogs. In my naturopath consultations over the years, I’ve seen lots of cases of folks with serious wounds. Many of them had been going to wound care clinics on a regular basis for over a year with little or no improvement. Once they started using herbs, I’ve not had a single case that wasn’t completely healed within a few months.

So, what are the 5 must-have herbs for wound cases? Well, I’ll tell you.

Cayenne

If I could only have one herb in my vet practice, it’d probably be cayenne. I’ve likely saved more lives with just that one plant than with all the rest combined. Its most amazing properties are for treating shock. When a patient comes in battered and bleeding from some serious trauma they are often in shock. Their gums are pale, their eyes are rolled back and they are talking to the big white dog at the end of the tunnel about their life. Then I give the cayenne. The transformation is amazing! The gums pink up the eyes brighten, the breathing improves and the dogs are suddenly very curious about what the #$%*@! just happened in their mouth! I’ve used it on trauma cases, hypothermia cases and on animals that were having bad anesthesia reactions and didn’t want to wake up. It’s amazing stuff. It’s also good for bleeding and, when applied topically to a wound, actually (and counterintuitively!) has some pain reducing properties.

Yarrow

Yarrow is an amazing herb for emergency and wound cases too. It’s principle application in a wound case is to stop bleeding. It works topically on wounds or internally. I’ve seen it stop bleeding as if someone had suddenly flipped a switch and just turned it off. I’m amazed every time. And it’s not just for wounds. I’ve also used it regularly on some pretty serious internal bleeding cases over the years. It also has some good antibiotic and anti-inflammatory properties that can be really helpful.

Calendula

Calendula or pot marigold is another great plant. It does a lot of things but the characteristic I like for wound cases is that it is a really good, broad-spectrum antibiotic. I use it both topically and internally to stop infections. It’s also a really good anti-inflammatory. And, if that weren’t enough, it helps to stimulate cell division and shorten healing times.

Marshmallow

Marshmallow or its cousins mallow and hollyhock are also must-haves for wound cases. For starters, these plants are amazingly soothing to wounds and burns. They contain a chemical called mucilage that just makes irritated tissue feel much better. In fact, I’ve used these plants on lots of cases where the wound was bad enough that it looked like significant amounts of tissue was going to die. I’ve often had cases come in on the verge of gangrene with a line forming on the skin below which everything was going to die and fall off. Without exception, if the tissue is still alive and I get marshmallow onto it topically and into the body internally, I’ve never had a case where that line wasn’t gone in about 12 hours. I’ve even used it on rattlesnake bites and hobo spider and brown recluse bites (combined with at few other green goodies) and have had amazing success turning those wounds around and preventing the tissue loss that those bites typically cause.

Comfrey

Perhaps the king of wound care is comfrey. Comfrey also has some soothing mucilage and some native anti-inflammatory properties, but it’s most astounding constituent is a little chemical called allantoin. Allantoin is the chemical responsible for comfrey’s amazing power to regenerate tissue. Comfrey used topically or internally can shorten wound healing times remarkably. I’ve use it for years in poultice formula either as an actual poultice or, more often than not these days, in topical wound sprays.

But Wait! There’s More!

I could go on and on about herbs and wounds but most folks don’t want to read a blog article about 50 different wound management herbs and strategies. That said, if you’d like to learn the information and tools to be an amazingly effective healer of wounds you could just come and see me next weekend. Yup, I’m doing a two-day hands-on workshop on herbal wound management. We’ll be discussing general principles, specific interventions and lots or particular cases. We’ll also be doing a plant walk so that you can learn to recognize and harvest the plants yourself.

Click Here To See Upcoming Events

If you can’t make it to Idaho next week, you can learn the same principles and much more in the HomeGrown Herbalist School of Botanical Medicine. It really is a very different sort of educational experience. We’re not just talking the talk here, we’ve been walking the walk using God’s amazing medicinal plants to treat all kinds of things every day for a really long time. There are plenty of great herbalists out there that can teach you how to manage insomnia, anxiety and eczema but there aren’t many that can teach you how to save your brother-in-law’s leg when he whacks it with an axe on the first day of the apocalypse. Might be good to know that sort of thing and we’d be delighted to teach you.

About Our School

As long as I’m making shameless commercial announcements, we also have some really excellent books and herb kits that could help. And, of course, there are good things to learn on our YouTube channel.

Books | Herb Kits | YouTube Channel

I hope you never have any wounds. But if you do, know that with just a handful of herbs growing in your garden and a little information, you could work healing wonders. :0)

Have a great week,

– Doc Jones


14 thoughts on “The Top Five Most Amazing Herbs For Healing Wounds!

  1. Jan says:

    Great article! i always learn so much from your posts. Would these wound care herbs work on the feet of a type 2 diabetic who has had the baby toe amputated and some tunneling to the bottom of the foot? Do you have the topical wound sprays in your store?

  2. Mary says:

    Thank you Doc for all that you do. I am pretty sure when you share your knowledge about all the amazing plants He created for our use God smiles.

  3. Michele Nutter says:

    I wish I lived closer!! I’d love to attend a live event.
    I’m a student in the school and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve dazzled my family by using herbs to heal them. Joining the school is one of the best decisions I’ve made!
    God bless!

  4. Jan says:

    Dear Doc Jones, What herbs/proticols can be used on a tooth infection (molar, at the tips of the roots) please? I don’t want an extraction or a root canal so I would appreciate any help you can give me. Thanks so much for sharing your knowledge and talents with us. Much appreciated.

  5. Ann says:

    I have an old cat that has an ulcerated chin and really bad cysts on her gums. Multiple vets have said there is nothing that can be done. I have used a yarrow tea on her chin, when she lets me. Is there something else I can try. She’s approximately 17 but keeps on going. Thank you

  6. Jim says:

    Hi Doc

    I really appreciate the fact that you use local plants in your healing. I firmly believe that God put plants in everyone’s back yard, to heal the people of the area.

    Its nice that we can use plants from other parts of the world and those seem to take a leading role in so much of our modern day natural medicine. In an emergency, I want to know what I can find in my pasture, in the woods on my farm, that can make a healing difference.

    I have not found anyone who focuses very much on what plant i can grab close at hand, for emergency use. You do bring us the names of these common plants, found out our door, waiting to be used.

    Thanks

    • Dr. Patrick Jones says:

      Having a connection to our local plants and knowing how to use them is a foundational principle of real herbal medicine. During the Great Depression, every herb importing company in the US went out of business. Depending of herbs from elsewhere is a pretty bad idea when times get tough.

  7. GP says:

    Thanks Dr Jones for your site and all your excellent information. The 5 plants / herbs you listed are ones we like and have used over the years (except marigold). Outside the US, across the pacific there is another herb used in TCM for wound healing that genuinely amazing. Called Tian Qi (田七) or San Qi (三七), the ability to stop bleeding even on deeper cuts is unparalleled. It is worked into a powdered formula called Yunnan bai yao 云南白药. When the powder is packed into a wound not only does it stop bleeding but also speeds up healing process. Doing woodworking it’s saved me from a few trips for stiches over the years. I don’t know of anyone State-side growing or attempting to grow this herb. I think it’s range is limited fairly exclusively to the yun nan region in China.

    • Dr. Patrick Jones says:

      Panax notoginseng if I remember right. I’ve seen it in the TCM formulas but haven’t ver tried it. Sounds like a good one.

  8. Tonya Brownlow says:

    I’m so thankful I discovered your channel! Do you have any upcoming events in 2023??
    God Bless You and your beautiful family.

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